Iranian cinema has experienced a renaissance in recent years—often shooting covertly, the country’s filmmakers are turning their country’s political drama into incredibly powerful cinema. “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” is one of the very best of these films. Writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof (“Iron Island,” TCFF ‘06, “Head Wind,” TCFF ‘08, “The White Meadows,” TCFF ‘11—can you tell we’re fans of his work?) follows both the government operatives assigned to terrorize, torture, and murder dissident writers and intellectuals, as well as the old men who will soon be their targets. The killers have problems of their own—one is a desperate father who needs the contract killing work to pay for his son’s operation. With the fraught mood (if not the adrenaline pace) of a thriller, Rasoulof has created a near perfect document on the horrors of censorship.